The banking industry is one of the top 5 sectors with the highest contribution to the Gross Domestic Product, said Luis Robles Miaja, president of the Mexican Banking Association

The banking industry is one of the top 5 sectors with the highest contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), said Luis Robles Miaja, president of the Mexican Banking Association during the 79th Banking Convention.

“This year banking was the number five driver of GDP growth; after trade, real estate, oil and gas and construction. The fifth largest contributor to GDP growth were financial services,” Robles Miaja said.

The head of the banking trade explained, in a meeting with media, that last year loans from Mexican banks to the private sector recorded a record high in comparison to the performance of the economy.

Luis Robles Miaja, president of the Mexican Banking Association, Luis Videgaray, Treasury and Public Finance Secretary, Ximena Puente de la Mora, president of the INAI, y Lorenzo Cordóva, council president of the INE.Photo: MOISÉS PABLO /CUARTOSCURO

“2015 was a very dynamic year, the most dynamic of the credit cycles grew 5.2 times GDP growth, it grew 12.9 percent or 9.3 percent versus the actual cycle, and between cycles (15 years) we achieved growth of up 20.7 percentage of GDP,” he said.

Also, Robles Miaja said the bullish rally of bank credit in the past 15 years is leading the industry to a record level of financial penetration.

“Today we are close to reaching the highest levels of loan penetration in the history of Mexico, this virtuous cycle will lead us surely in the coming months to break the maximum loan penetration reached by the Mexican financial system as measured by credit to the private sector as a percentage of GDP.”

He explained that comparatively, that of developed and emerging economies, the current cycle of the expansion of bank credit in the country is favorable, since the example cited the average expansion of 3.7 times GDP that places Mexico from 2001 to 2014 as greater than 3 times V&S GDP of the banking system in Brazil and 2.9 times that of Spain reporting the same period of time.